She was close. Again, he deepened his strokes, driving into her with a matching abandon.
“Come with me over the edge,” he groaned into her mouth. He was close, so close to the precipice.
“Nick,” she cried, her quim convulsing in release, pulsing her climax around his cock. One . . . two more thrusts, and he followed her into the wild freedom of release. It was a moment he never wanted to end. Yet his hips gradually and inevitably stilled, and beat after beat, his heart slowed its urgent tattoo.
“Nick?” came her voice.
Not yet, he silently implored. It wasn’t his name on her lips that he minded; it was the question in her voice. He sensed distance in that question. He lifted his head from the curve of her damp neck and accepted that the future was upon them.
He pressed a palm against rough bark and pushed away, catching a quick flash of her quim before her dress fell down and into place. His fingers reached down to cinch the closure of his trousers. The moment slipped into the past.
His eyes found hers, and in their depths flashed uncertainty. A future might be located in that misgiving, if he managed it right. The possibility rekindled a light he’d thought extinguished. Perhaps the space between them wasn’t insuperable. “Mariana”—A silly and uncontrollable note of optimism sounded in his voice—“do you feel—”
“I’m not certain what I feel.”
“But you feel it, too.”
“Anditis?” she evaded.
“More certain than you would admit,” he replied, but he wouldn’t press the issue. He hadn’t yet earned the right.
Her gaze broke from his. In an efficient flurry of movement, she began dusting off and smoothing down her skirts.
He tilted his gaze up and followed a large bird of prey as it cut across the sky above them. How much time had passed? It hardly mattered. For a single, glorious moment in time they’d soared above the realm of reality.
“Are we husband and wife now?” she asked, refreshed and ready to meet the world’s scrutiny. If he detected the slightest hint of a wobble in her voice, the rest of the world wouldn’t. They didn’t know her like he did.
The temptation to misinterpret her words nearly superseded all good sense. This coupling could be a consummation of sorts, a renewal, a beginning. But that interpretation would be disingenuous. She was, of course, speaking of their game of pretend. “Yes,” he replied. Simple was best at present. “Will you attend the Capet family’s soirée tonight?”
With a quick nod of her head, she gave her assent. Relief flooded through him, even if he’d sensed her reluctance. “Tonight, we will be loving husband and wife,” he said recklessly. Why was he pushing his luck?
“Loving?” she scoffed. “There aren’t many people who would believe that.”
“It only takes two.”
The words were bold, too bold, but were they true?
Her fingers fidgeted with her reticule, again calling to mind a skittish deer.
“My carriage awaits me at the end of the avenue,” she stated and pivoted on her heel, the very heel that had dug into the small of his back not five minutes ago. “Until we meet tonight,husband.”
Like last night, he followed her at a respectful distance while she picked her way through the small, but dense, copse of trees and onto the dusty granite avenue that led to her waiting carriage. On a tidy, little hop, she slipped inside and rolled away. At the periphery of his vision, another conveyance jerked into motion. His agent would take it from here.
Where had the present gone?
To join all the other moments in their past that he’d allowed to slip away.
The familiar encroaching darkness of his parents’ doomed union crept toward the edges of his consciousness. For years, he’d allowed that past free rein over his future, but not today. Today, he pushed it away and turned toward the truth, unavoidable and clear: he was in love with his wife.
It was that simple. It was that complex.
What he felt in his body extended beyond physical sensation. There was a fullness . . . a lightness . . . a wholeness . . . a rightness.
As selfish as it might be, he wasn’t about to let her go. Not a second time. He would have more than simple physical satiety from Mariana. He would have a future with her.
The past be damned.
Chapter 21
